Mark 1:35-39 is a great lesson in quiet time maintenance: get up early, far away from other people, and pray. Except it isn’t. It’s much deeper and more significant than that. Those are things you or I might find helpful but they’re scarcely determinative. And they're certainly not the point of this passage.
Jesus goes out to a solitary place - a wilderness place. He’s been to that kind of place fairly recently in this chapter, "At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him."
What was going on back there? The God-determined testing of Jesus. Mark doesn’t give as full an account of it as Matthew and Luke; he simply notes it took place and that wild beasts were present and angels ministered to Jesus there. Fast forward to verses 35-39 and we see Jesus choosing to rise very early and go out to pray in a wilderness place. How do they connect?
The night before, he healed and delivered scores of people - the whole town had gathered at the door. And when the disciples eventually find him on this morning they give him the (hardly surprising) news that everyone is looking for him. They love him - he’s a great guy to have around! No doubt they want him to stay, for a long time. Who wouldn’t?
And Jesus tells his disciples that he’s not going to stay, that he’s instead going on to the other towns and villages, because he has to preach the gospel there too.
The clamour of the townspeople is a powerful temptation, more dangerous than the wild beasts in the wilderness. Everyone likes to be popular; the pull of a crowd is subtle and subversive - and will eat you for breakfast. And so Jesus gets up very early (before breakfast) to pray, so he can resist the temptation to settle for being popular and being needed and to maintain his focus on what really matters most for him: taking the gospel to those who haven't heard it. So he can spend time delighting himself in his Father that his heart might be strengthened in desiring and choosing all that is good and reject the corrupted.
We're people who are vulnerable to temptation, which is why the Lord's Prayer directs us to ask that we not be put to the test but delivered from evil. Every day is an obstacle course of 'the world, the flesh and the devil'. Jesus' example shows our need to pray in the light of that, looking to align ourselves with the will of our Father in heaven and his gospel, in opposition to the tempations we daily face. When the wilderness is replaced by a garden, his prayer remains, "Not my will but yours be done".
We all know the sad truth that we are prone to wander (and we feel it). We're often blind to the real issues at play in our lives and to the concealed heart of the temptations we face. Some of the details may have changed recently but the essence remains. Our Lord Jesus knew he needed to pray to resist temptation, to keep his heart's focus on what mattered most. He needed to pray to see clearly what he was facing and to enter into the struggle and make the choices that would honour his Father and his mission. So do we.
And yet, knowing that all too well, we're very often like the disciples in the garden - having been exhorted to watch and pray that they wouldn't fall into temptation, they instead fall into sleep. But our Saviour recognises his disciples' vulnerability, mercifully acknowledging that "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (it remains so). A Saviour who stays awake and continues to pray, who continues to doggedly pursue his way to the cross that he might give himself to rescue us from all harm, from all temptation and sin.
That's why he got up so early.
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O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,
And all things else recede;
My heart be daily nearer Thee,
From sin be daily freed.
Each day let Thy supporting might
My weakness still embrace;
My darkness vanish in Thy light,
Thy life my death efface.
In Thy bight beams, which on me fall,
Fade every evil thought;
That I am nothing, Thou art all,
I would be daily taught.
More of Thy glory let me see,
Thou Holy, Wise, and True!
I would Thy living image be,
In joy and sorrow too.
Fill me with gladness from above,
Hold me by strength divine!
Lord, let the glow of Thy great love
Through my whole being shine.
Make this poor self grow less and less,
Be Thou my life and aim;
O make me daily, through Thy grace,
More meet to bear Thy name!
Johann Casper Lavater (1741-1801)
tr. Elizabeth Lee Smith (1817-98)
